At 6:30 this morning, the fairly strong winds of an approaching storm blew some branches into a powerline across the street (in the sheep pasture), causing first the fuses and then the transformer to blow. We were without power for nine hours as tree-trimming and transformer-replacing crews toiled in the rain. When power was restored, and I reset a tripped breaker, I discovered that my microwave oven had been, well, nuked by the power surge. The microwave is the only electrical item of any significance that was not plugged into a surge protector; it was plugged directly into the wall outlet. (I'm not completely stupid, but I am lazy: I had a surge protector for that outlet, but when I moved my refrigerator out of the kitchen and into the pantry, where there are no grounded outlets, I realized I had to string two surge-protecting power strips together for the 'fridge to reach a grounded outlet. One of those strips came from the kitchen counter, and all good intentions to replace it were quickly forgotten.) So now I need a new microwave; no big deal, as this one was getting pretty old and may not have lasted much longer.However, it soon occurred to me that the microwave was not the only appliance in harm's way. On almost any other night, my laptop would also have been plugged directly into the wall (and being a Wednesday night, it'd've been left on to run some utility programs overnight.) I blanch to think what my mental state would be if this very expensive laptop which is essential in so many different ways had been converted into a smoking doorstop. But good fortune, a very infrequent visitor in this house, was in my pocket last night, and it's all because of cricket.
You see, I've fallen in love with cricket, and have slavishly watched every moment of the recent 5-match ODI series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The final match, played today in Chittagong, which was last night California-time (and which was won by Bangladesh in thrilling fashion), was telecast beginning at 6:30pm yesterday. (If you are wondering, I can watch such things on the web via the site ESPN360.com, the only good thing ever to come from the Worldwide Leader.) Zimbabwe, batting first, survived their entire allotment of 50 overs, which meant that their half of the innings lasted until something like 11pm my time. Not wanting to miss Bangladesh's turn at the strike, I took the computer to bed with me--where the available outlet is a surge-protected one. When the match ended, at about 3am, I considered returning the laptop to its usual place, but opted to just leave it on the dresser, still plugged into the power strip (because it was still running, as noted above.)
Had it not been for that fifth match of the Grameenphone Cup, my laptop would be a smoldering piece of toast right now, and so would my psyche. Cricket is my new favorite sport.
Pictured: Bangladesh allrounder Shakib al Hasan, source http://www.deshiweb.com/cricket/shakib-takes-top-spot-among-odi-allrounders/
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